Chapter 31

The winter of 1931-32 was a harsh one and soon everyone was looking forward to the spring. The Depression that had begun with the decline in farm prices after World War I was then provoked by the bursting of the stock market bubble in 1929 and now gripped much of the industrialized world. Turmoil tore through Europe and the various fascist and communist groups fed on it. In America, some editorials and many pessimists were predicting the end of the democratic experiment and began looking for a "man on a white horse." There were several volunteers and the homegrown Socialist Party grew to very respectable size.

In the County both teachers and other local government employees had taken a pay cut and many jobs were left unfilled. Road repairs went undone, broken windows in the courthouse stayed unfixed, school plumbing problems festered uncured. No local banks or insurance companies had failed, but some small businesses had collapsed and at the Williams' general store, and many other similar places, both prices and profits had fallen and many more customers had defaulted on their bills. Some days, after he paid for a gasoline delivery, Sammy had less in the till when he turned off the lights than he had when he opened his store in the morning.

Many nights Polly could serve nothing but beans or bread and gravy for supper or sometimes French toast made with eggs that did not candle well, ones she purchased cheaply from their tenant. Once she gave her family a bowl of mashed turnips with butter and cornbread. Sammy asked her not to do that again because he said it reminded him of the Army. Milk was almost always plentiful, if unpasteurized, but soda pop became a special treat and on some weekends the boys scoured the roadside for a mile or more in both directions looking for discarded deposit bottles to buy their candy with. Sammy decided to stop making deliveries except on cash orders of ten dollars or more and that policy cost him some customers. They put aside their plans to purchase an electric refrigerator and continued to get block ice every other day.

When Polly took the children to Rockville to buy new shoes, everyone got a pair that were at least a half-size too big. Darning socks became an every night occupation and the knees of the boys' knickers were constantly being patched. Janie once told her mother that she was awfully glad she was the only girl in the family because she never got hand-me-downs. Her mother gave her one of Mike's old coats to wear that winter and smiled when she did.

The Christmas of 1931 was a bleak one, but Sammy did his best to brighten it for his five boys and little girl. The children exchanged gifts they had created for each other, things made of bottles caps and spool knitting, boats carved out of pine and pictures burned into wooden boards with a heated poker. Sammy gave Polly a pair of brown leather gloves, and she gave him a dark blue muffler she had knitted and some bedtime criticism for buying the gloves. Bud enjoyed the tree with its electric lights and the wind-up train that rattled around under it, but it was a somber holiday for most. When the grace was said at Christmas dinner, a roast chicken instead of a turkey, Uncle Robert was remembered in the prayer.

Paul's first year in high school seemed to be going very well, and he had made some new friends who invited him to several parties in both Bethesda and Chevy Chase during the holidays. Mike was, according to his own stories, becoming a pet of the high school gym teacher, a feisty young man that everyone called "Zip" behind his back but Mr. Lehr when he was listening. Mike was in the process of mastering the bent-knees, two-handed set shot "Zip" taught his basketball players and got his father's permission to nail a barrel hoop up on the side of the privy. And Phil, with his early birthday, was now at the Bethesda school with Janie and very proud of boarding the trolley car by himself and handing his nickel to the conductor, his lunch, like his sister's, in a small paper bag. For a quarter a month, the children got a half-pint of milk and a graham cracker each day at their school thanks to the Parents' Association. Secretly, on her way back from the car stop that first morning that Philip went off to school in his short pants, knees socks and too-large shoes, his mother had wept. Both of Polly's children brought home skinned knees and silly songs as well as wide-lined papers filled with teacher praise and golden stars.

Polly, now at home from seven until four with only her fast-moving two-year-old, worked in the store most days by erecting a folding play-pen behind the counter for her rambunctious boy, one that he soon learned to escape. When she caught him crawling up the canned goods shelves, chasing the cat or heading for the front door, he would laugh and scamper back into his wood-fenced prison, clambering over the side with surprising grace and smiling out at his mock-furious mother, still carrying his ratty blanket.

The gasoline business had declined to the point that the store now carried only one brand of fuel and no longer stocked any other auto supplies except motor oil and Prestone anti-freeze. The sale of kerosene had increased after many folks stopped paying their electric bills and went back to their smoky lamps.

Without telling his wife, Sammy had called his brother-in-law, Bill Birch, and asked if there might be a job for him at the printing plant. Mr. Birch sighed and said that he had laid off three men and shut down the second offset press. On many nights, in bed, Sammy and Polly had talked about the future. She was generally optimistic and sure things would soon get better, just as President Hoover kept promising. Sammy was much less sure and said he was hoping the Democrats found a good man to run against Hoover in 1932. They both doubted that Al Smith would make another try. They began taking precautions that they had never bothered with before in order to prevent another pregnancy.

There had been a pretty violent hunger march in Washington in December of 1931 led by what were called "Red" agitators, and Congress quickly demanded action as the President requested funds for public works. Then as winter turned toward spring the question of the soldiers' bonus seemed to appear in the newspapers and on the radio almost every day. Representative Wright Patman of Texas introduced a bill for immediate payment of the cash bonus promised for 1945. Veterans' groups, the Hearst newspapers and a rabble-rousing radio priest named Coughlin loudly supported the idea.